Nantes – A City of Surprises

Place: Nantes, France (located 50 km from the coast immediately south of Brittany)

Region, Department: Pays de la Loire, Loire Atlantique

Airport: Nantes Airport (also served by Rennes Airport with train connections from the city of Rennes)

Railway Station: Nantes is a major railway station connected to most important destinations in France

Places and Things to see: Museum of the Machines of the Isles of Nante, Nante Cathedral and Castle, Guerande town and salt pans on the Britanny coast

Dates: 6th April 2012 to 9th April 2012

NOTE: Pardon the lack of accents in names – I wasn’t sure where they should go and rather than mix them up, thought I’d be fair and drop them all!

EPISODE 1 – NANTES

When my friend Marine invited me to visit her in Nantes, I had to look it up on Wikipedia. If there is one word to describe Nantes, it is unassuming. And if there were two, I’d go with unassuming and happening. It isn’t a ski resort, it isn’t Paris; it isn’t the Cote-de-Azure or the Rhone valley, but it is, nonetheless, full of pleasant surprises. The city made good on the slave trade before such things became passé. It now boasts a magnificent cathedral, some beautiful residential apartments and a quaint castle and city centre.

The evening I arrived, Marine and I took a lovely walk along the Loire river from the city centre towards Nantes University.

We were five of us the next day – Marine, Camille, Renin, Aurelie and me, and the plan was to tour the sights of the city. I had three and half days in France and as it turns out, there was a lot to do!

EPISODE 2 – THE MUSEUM OF THE MACHINES

The most remarkable attraction in Nantes is, by far, the Royal De Luxe theatre company’s Museum of the Machines of the Isles of Nantes. This museum is unlike any I have ever seen. The company, founded by Jean-Luc Courcoult, is a street theatre company that give performances world-wide. In fact they have just been performing in Liverpool to commemmorate 100 years of the Titanic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-17806029 The museum is the brainchild of two inventors, François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice. It houses fantastic structures and automata (machinated animals and plants), such as the now world-famous wooden elephant. Built out of ‘tulip’ wood and as high as a three-storey building the elephant is actually fitted with gear that allows it to walk and run, eyes that open and shut, and a trunk that flexes itself, and even sprays water out its nozzle at unsuspecting passers-by!

The museum workshops are a fascinating journey into the world of gears and hydraulics, as the men and women there aim to replicate the natural world to the best of their ability using simple mechanical equipment and principles and some truly remarkable workmanship. Their current project  - called the Heron Tree project - involves a giant tree, 35 m in girth and 40 m tall, built of steel, with potted plants revegetating its branches. The tree will have mechanical ants, bugs and caterpillars that tourists can ride, and two giant herons nesting on the highest branches that periodically circle the tree, carrying passengers.

Yet another project is the Underwater Carousel - a giant carousel show-casing the creatures of the sea. The carousel when finished will have two levels – surface and deep sea, with different real and mythical creatures inhabiting each level and a bathyscape that will travel between the two!

We came out of the museum wonder-struck, marvelling at the creativity, ingenuity and effort that had gone into these projects. We took a walk back to the city centre, where my friends pointed out a wall on a small traffic island that seemed to have fallen from the sky. The wall, as it turns out, was part of a massive street theatre performance put on by the company last year where the history of Nantes was presented in the form of a story –  a young Mexican girl and her dog who came to Nantes during the slave trade years. The painting is a fascinating medley of characters and instances from real life and imagined stories. One can stare at it for hours and still find something new!

It was looking at this painting that I learnt that Nantes is the city of Jules Verne, the author of one of my all-time favourites – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Little-known fact!

I later learnt that the Underwater Carousel in the Museum of the Machines was actually inspired by him.

We ended the day in slightly more sedate fashion as we made a short sortie to the very quaint erstwhile fishing village (but now posh arty settlement) of Trente Mille, one of the islands in the Loire river.

EPISODE 3 – CREPES AND A CARNIVAL

No write-up about France can be complete without a mention of the food. Despite my misgivings about vegetarian food in this meat and seafood-loving country, I had some very memorable meals in Nantes!

The night before the ‘day of the museums’ dessert at Renin’s flat was the very French course of bread and cheese with some excellent red wine (I assume the wine was excellent since it was selected and served by the French!).

The next day, dinner was at La Quimper, a creperie that my friends had promised me would be very special. It would be remiss of me to talk about food here without first giving a bit of the history that goes with it. In the days before World War II and the Vichy, Nantes was a part of the unofficial region of Brittany (Bretagne). In fact, a Duchess of Brittany who would later become Queen of France hailed from the city. However, Nantes was separated from Brittany and became part of the Pays de la Loire region during the War and has remained separate since then despite demands for reunification.

The point of this story is that the crepes of Brittany are different to those in the rest of France. Nantes, historically being of the same region, also lays claim to the ‘Bretagne’ crepes – and that was what we were going to try this evening. I have a weakness for pancakes – especially the savoury sort. I do not know if these were the genuine thing, but the crepes I had at the La Quimper restaurant in Nantes were oh-so-delicious, and come close to being the tastiest sort of pancakes I have ever had!

And there was more to come, for dessert!

It being Easter, we finished our dinner by ten and got out onto the streets in anticipation of the Nantes Easter Carnival. The events don’t stop in this city! The theme of the carnival this year was children’s folk and fairy tales, given an adolescent/teenage twist (a slightly weird Red Riding Hood in stockings, for instance). By my friends’ accounts, the carnival wasn’t as good as usual, but I had a marvelous night, keeping time to the chants and songs that welled up every time a float went by, and trying hard to keep my head and clothes confetti-free!

EPISODE 4 – THE COAST AND EASTER CHOCOLATES!

The next morning we piled into our cars and made our way to the medieval town of Guerande on the French Atlantic coast. Well, the town used to be on the coast and indeed prospered while it was there, until falling sea-levels due to the retreat of the ice age meant that it gradually kept moving away from the coast! The town and its walls were however preserved in almost pristine condition and remain a must-see sight today.

Close-by are the salt-pans of Guerande, where salt is collected ‘organically’ adhering to traditions that are centuries old, refined with the help of modern science and technology. The guided tour of the salt-pans was in French, but my friends Camille, Renin and Aurelie very helpfully translated all the interesting bits for me, giving me a fascinating picture of good old-fashioned salt-making!

We headed back to Renin's flat where we had been hosted very kindly the past two nights, and were treated to some delicious home-made tartiflette and, as it was Easter, fruit and chocolate fondue!

Before I knew it, it was Monday morning and time to leave. It had been a short weekend but a whirlwind tour and it couldn’t have been any fuller! Having made plans to meet again in France, we said our good-byes. My Easter was made complete at the Rennes Airport with a complimentary Easter egg at the check-in counter! 


Before I close off this post, here are some pictures of the people that made this trip so great :)

Until next time… Au revoir!